Noctes Atticae

The weak arguments by which Accius in his Didascalica attempts to prove that Hesiod was earlier than Homer.

As to the age of Homer and of Hesiod opinions differ. Some, among whom are Philochorus [*](F.H.G. i. 393, Müller.) and Xenophanes, [*](Poet, Phil. Frag. 13, Diels; Poesis Ludib. fr. 5, p. 191, Wachsmuth.) have written that Homer was older than Hesiod; others that he was younger, among them Lucius Accius the poet and Euphorus the historian. [*](F.H.G. i. 277, Müller.) But Marcus Varro, in the first book of his Portraits, [*](See note 2, p. 267.) says [*](Fr. p. 258, Bipont.) that it is not at all certain which of the two was born first, but that there is no doubt that they lived partly in the same period of time, and that this is proved by the inscription [*](Anth. Pal. vii. 53, Greek Anth. L.C.L., ii. 53: Hsi/odos Mou/sais (Elikwni/si to/nd' a)ne/qhka.u(/mnw| nikh/sas e)n Xalki/di qei=on (/Omhron.) engraved upon a tripod which Hesiod is said to have set up on Mount Helicon. Accius, on the contrary, in the first book of his Didascalica, [*](Fr. 1, Müller; F.P.R. 7, Bährens.) makes use of very weak arguments in his attempt to show that Hesiod was the elder:

Because Homer,

when he says at the beginning of his poem [*](Iliad. 1. 1.) that Achilles was the son of Peleus, does not inform us who Peleus was; and this he unquestionably would have done, if he did not know that the information had already been given by Hesiod. [*](Frag. 102, Rzach.) Again, in the case of Cyclops,

he would not have failed to note such a striking characteristic and to make particular mention of the fact that he was oneeyed, were it not that this was equally well known from the poems of his predecessor Hesiod.

Also as to Homer's native city there is the very greatest divergence of opinion. Some say that he was from Colophon, some from Smyrna; others

1. This snow-white kid the tomb of Homer marks;
2. For such the Ietae [*](That is, the inhabitants of Ios.) offer to the dead.

That Publius Nigidius, a man of great learning, applied bibosus to one who was given to drinking heavily and greedily, using a new, but hardly rational, word-formation.

PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS, in his Grammatical Notes,[*](Fr. 5, Swoboda.) calls one who is fond of drinking bibax and bibosus. Bibax, like edax, I find used by many others; but as yet I have nowhere found an example of bibosus, except in Laberius, and there is no other word similarly derived. For vinosus, or vitiosus, and other formations of the kind, are not parallel, since they are derived from nouns, not from verbs. Laberius, in the mime entitled Salinator, uses this word thus: [*](v. 80, Ribbeck3.)

1. Not big of breast, not old, not bibulous, not pert.

How Demosthenes, while still young and a pupil of the philosopher Plato, happening to hear the orator Callistratus add ressing the people, deserted Plato and became a follower of Callistratus.

HERMIPPUS has written [*](Fr. Hist. Gr. iii. 49, Mu:;ller.) that Demosthenes, when quite young, used to frequent the Academy and

And this Demosthenes,

when he had left home and, as usual, was on his way to Plato, saw great throngs of people running to the same place; he inquired the reason of this, and learned that they were hurrying to hear Callistratus. This Callistratus was one of those orators in the Athenian republic that they call dhmagwgoi/, or 'demagogues.' [*](Leaders of the people.) Demosthenes thought it best to turn aside for a moment and find out whether the discourse justified such eager haste. He came,

and heard Callistratus delivering that famous speech of his, h( peri\ )Wrwpou= di/kh. [*](The Action about Oropus.) He was so moved, so charmed, so captivated, that he became a follower of Callistratus from that moment, deserting Plato and the Academy.

That whoever says dimidium librum legi, or dimidiam fabulam audivi, and uses other expressions of that kind, speaks incorrectly: and that Marcus Varro gives the explanation of that error: and that no early writer has used such phraseology.

VARRO believes that dimidium librum legi (

I have read half the book

I have read half the play

For,

which I own in common with another person, has been divided into two parts, I ought to speak of it as 'halved,' not as 'a half': but my share of the silver of which the bowl is made is a 'half,' not 'halved.'

1. As if one brought a halved cup of wine,

half,

halved.

Now the point of all this argument, which Varro sets forth acutely, it is true, but somewhat obscurely, is this: dimidiatum is equivalent to dismediatum, and means

divided into two parts,

1. With one eye and two feet, like halved pig,

1. why not? To sell his trash the huckster lauds
2. (The rascal!) half a shoe, a strigil split.

1. At its own season and the self-same time,
2. The half an hour and three at least elapsed,
3. At the fourth hour again. [*](The meaning is very uncertain. Marx thinks that the reference is to the quartam ague, "the attacks of which regularly subside at the same time (eandem ad quartam horam.), after a minimum duration of three hours and a half.' Lucilius refers, not to the fourth hour of the day (non diei horam dicit), but to every fourth hour of the period of illness (totius temporis spatii quo aegrotus cubat febri correptus). Dumtaxat is to be taken with the numeral, as in Plaut. Truc. 445. For ad quartam he cites Seneca, Nat. Quaest. iii. 16. 2, quartana ad horam venit, and Suet. Aug. lxxxvii, 1, ad Kalendas Graecas soluturos.)

three and a half elapsed,

half an hour

a halved hour

the halt part of an hour.

half of the gold,

the halved gold,

half of the provisions,

the halved provisions,

1. He bade them give him half of all the meats;

the halved day,

half,

1. Down to the navel now the halved day is dead.

Sow cypress seed thick, just as flax is commonly sown. Over it sift earth from a sieve to the depth of a halved finger. Then smooth it well with a board, with the feet, or with the hands.

a halved finger,

a half.

half of a finger,

halved.

They buried the men halfway down (dimidiatos) in the ground and built a fire around them; thus they destroyed them.

That it is recorded in literature and handed down by tradition, that great and unexpected joy has brought sudden death to many, since the breath of life was stifled and could not endure the effects of an unusual and strong emotion.

ARISTOTLE the philosopher relates [*](Frag. 559, V. Rose.) that Polycrita, a woman of high rank in the island of Naxos, on suddenly and unexpectedly hearing joyful news, breathed her last. Philippides too, a comic poet of no little repute, when he had unexpectedly won the prize in a contest of poets at an advanced age, and was rejoicing exceedingly, died suddenly in the midst of his joy. The story also of Diogoras of Rhodes is widely known. This Diogoras had three young sons, one a boxer, the second a pancratist, [*](The pancratium was a contest including both wrestling and boxing.) and the third a wrestler. He saw them all victors

Moreover, I have read in our annals that at the time when the army of the Roman people was cut to pieces at Cannae, [*](216 B.C. ) an aged mother was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow by a message announcing the death of her son; but that report was false, and when not long afterwards the young man returned from that battle to the city, the aged mother, upon suddenly seeing her son, was overpowered by the flood, the shock, and the crash, so to speak, of unlooked-for joy descending upon her, and gave up the ghost.

The variations in the period of gestation reported by physicians and philosophers; and incidentally the views also of the ancient poets on that subject and many other noteworthy and interesting particulars; and the words of the physician Hippocrates, quoted verbatim from his book entitled Peri\ Trofh=s. [*](On Nurture.)

BOTH physicians and philosophers of distinction have investigated the duration of the period of gestation in man. The general opinion, now accepted as correct, is that after the womb of a woman has conceived the seed, the child is born rarely in the seventh month, never in the eighth, often in the ninth, more often in the tenth in number; and that the end of the tenth month, not its beginning, is

1. And then the girl whom he did violate
2. Brought forth a daughter when ten months had sped.

1. The woman is ten months with child . . .

1. And may a child in the tenth month be born?—
2. By Pollux! in the ninth, and seventh, and eighth.

Eighth-month's children exist and do not exist.

They exist, since they appear to live after the miscarriage; but they do not exist, since they die afterwards; they exist and do not exist therefore, since they live for the moment in appearance, but not in reality.

But Varro says [*](l. c.) that the early Romans did not regard such births as unnatural rarities, but they did believe that a woman was delivered according to nature in the ninth or tenth month, and in no others, and that for this reason they gave to the three Fates names derived from bringing forth, and from the ninth and tenth months.

For Parca,

is derived from partuis with the change of one letter, and likewise Nona and Decima from the period of timely delivery.

Nona, Decuma, Morta

1. When will the day be present that Morta has predicted?

Furthermore, besides what I have read in books about human gestation, [*](XII Tab. iv. 4, Schöll. The fragment is not extant, but it is cited also by Ulpian, Dig. xxxviii. 16. 3. 11: post decem menses mortis natus non admittetur ad legitimam hereditatem.) also heard of the following case, which occurred in Rome: A woman of good and honourable character, of undoubted chastity, gave birth to a child in the eleventh month after her husband's death, and because of the reckoning of the time the accusation was made that she had conceived after the death of her husband, since the decemvirs had written that a child is born in ten months and not in the eleventh month. The deified Hadrian, however, having heard the case, decided that birth might also occur in the eleventh month, and I myself have read the actual decree with regard to the matter. In that decree Hadrian declares that he makes his decision after looking up the views of the ancient philosophers and physicians.

This very day I chanced to read these words in a satire of Marcus Varro's entitled The Will: [*](Fr. 543, Bücheler3.)

If one or more sons shall be born to me in ten months, let them be disinherited, if they are asses in music; [*](That is, stupid, half-witted.) but if one be born to me in the eleventh month, according to Aristotle, [*](i.e., as Aristotle says may happen; Hist. Anim. vii. 4.) let Attius have the same rights under my will as Tettius.

let Attius be as Tettius,

But if it is a fact that gestation cannot be prolonged beyond the tenth month, it is pertinent to ask why Homer wrote that Neptune said to a girl whom he had just violated: [*](Odyss. xi. 248.)

1. Rejoice, O woman, in this act of love;
2. A year gone by, fair offspring shall be thine,
3. For not unfruitful is a god's embrace.

When I had brought this matter to the attention of several scholars, some of them argued that in Homer's time, as in that of Romulus, the year consisted, not of twelve months, but of ten; others, that it was in accord with Neptune and his majesty that a child by him should develop through a longer period than usual; and others gave other nonsensical reasons. But Favorinus tells me that periplome/nou e)niautou= does not mean

when the year is ended

when it is nearing its end

In this instance Favorinus did not use the word adfectus in its popular signification (but yet correctly); for as it was used by Marcus Cicero and the most polished of the early writers, it was properly applied to things which had advanced, or been carried, not to the very end, but nearly to the end. Cicero gives the word that meaning in the speech On the Consular Provinces. [*](§ 19, bellum adfectum videmus ct, vere ut dicam, paene cawfectum; cf. § 29.)

Moreover, Hippocrates, in that book of which I wrote above, when he mentioned the number of days within which the embryo conceived in the womb is given form, and had limited the time of gestation itself to the ninth or tenth month, but had said that this nevertheless was not always of the same duration, but that delivery occurred sometimes more quickly, sometimes later, finally used these words:

In these cases there are longer and shorter periods, both wholly and in part; but the longer are not much longer or the shorter much shorter.

I recall that this question was carefully and thoroughly investigated at Rome, an inquiry demanded by a suit at law of no small moment at the time, whether, namely, a child that had been born alive in the eighth month but had died immediately, satisfied the conditions of the ius trium liberorrum, [*](The fathers of three children were granted certain privileges and immunities.) since it seemed to some that the untimely period of the eighth month made it an abortion and not a birth.

But since I have told what I have learned about a birth after a year in Homer and about the eleventh month, I think I ought not to omit what I read in the seventh book of the Natural Histoy of Plinius Secundus. But because that story might seem to be beyond belief, I have quoted Pliny's own words: [*](vii. 40.)

Masurius makes the statement [*](Fr. 24, Huschke; Memor. 21, Jur. Civ. 31, Bremer.) that the praetor Lucius Papirius, when an heir in the second degree [*](The heir or heirs in the second degree inherited only in case the heirs in the first degree died, or were otherwise incompetent.) brought suit for the possession of an inheritance, decided against him, although the mother [*](That is, the mother of the heir in the first degree.) said that she had been pregnant for thirteen months; and the reason for his decision was that it seemed to him that no definite period of gestation had been fixed by law.

Yawning during childbirth is fatal, just as to sneeze after coition produces abortion.

The statement of men of the highest authority that Plato bought three books of Philolaus the Pythagorean, and that Aristotle purchased a few books of the philosopher Speusippus, at prices beyond belief.

THE story goes that the philosopher Plato was a man of very slender means, but that nevertheless he bought three books of Philolaus the Pythagorean for ten thousand denarii.1 That sum, according to some writers, was given him by his friend Dion of Syracuse.

Aristotle too, according to report, bought a very few books of the philosopher Speusippus, after the latter's death, for three Attic talents, a sum equivalent in our money to seventy-two thousand sesterces. [*](These were very high prices. The first book of Martial's Epigrams, 700 lines, in an elegant form, cost only five denarii, and cheaper editions could be bought for from six to ten sesterces. See Martial, i. 117. 15ff., and Friedländer, Roman Life and Manners, Eng. Trans., iii. p. 37.)

The bitter satirist Timon wrote a highly abusive work, which he entitled Si/llos. [*](Meaning a lampoon, or satirical poem.) In that book he addresses the philosopher Plato in opprobrious terms, alleging that he had bought a treatise on the Pythagorean philosophy at an extravagant figure, and that from it he had compiled that celebrated dialogue the Timaeus. Here are Timon's lines on the subject: [*](Poet. Phil. Frag. 54, Diehls; Poesis Ludib. 26, p 130, Wachsmuth.)

1. Thou, Plato, since for learning thou didst yearn,
2. A tiny book for a vast sum did'st buy,
3. Which taught thee a Timacus to compose.

What is meant by pedari senafores, and why they are so called; also the origin of these words in the customary edict of the consuls:

senators and those who are allowed to speak in the senate.

THERE are many who think that those senators were called pedarii who did not express their opinion in words, but agreed with the opinion of others by stepping to their side of the House. How then? Whenever a decree of the senate was passed by division, did not all the senators vote in that manner? Also the following explanation of that word is given, which Gavius Bassus has left recorded in his Commentaries. For he says [*](Frag. 7, Fun.) that in the time of our forefathers senators who had held a curule magistracy used to ride to the House in a chariot, as a mark of honour; that in that chariot there was a seat on which they sat, which for that reason was called curulis; [*](For currulis, from currus. This derivation is given by Thurneysen, T.L.L. s.v., with the suggestion that the name, as well as the seat itself, was of Etruscan origin.) but that those senators who had not yet held a curule magistracy went on foot to the House: and that therefore the senators who had not yet held the higher magistracies were called pedarii. Marcus Varro, however, in the Menippean Satire entitled (Ippoku/wn, says [*](Frag. 220, Büchcler. ) that some knights were called pedarii, and he seems to mean those who, since they had not yet been enrolled in the senate by the censors, were not indeed senators, but because they had held offices by vote of the people, used to come into the senate and had the right of voting. In fact, even those who had filled curule magistracies, if they had not

Senators and those who have the right to express their opinion in the senate.

I have had a line of Laberius copied also, in which that word is used; I read it in a mime entitled Stricturae: [*](v. 88, Ribbeck3, who reads: sine lingua caput peddrii senténtias, and gives other versions.)

1. The aye-man's vote is but a tongueless head.

Why, according to Gavius Bassus, a man is called parcus and what he thought to be the explanation of that word; and how, on the contrary, Favorinus made fun of that explanation of his.

AT the dinners of the philosopher Favorinus, after the guests had taken their places and the serving of the viands began, a slave commonly stood by his table and began to read something, either from Grecian literature or from our own. For example, one day when I was present the reading was from the treatise of the learned Gavius Bassus On the Origin of Verbs and Substantives. In it this passage occurred: [*](Frag. 6, Fun.)

Parcus is a compound word, made up

v1.p.305

of par arcae, that is 'like a strong-box;' for just as all valuables are put away in a strong-box and preserved and kept under its protection, just so a man who is close and content to spend little keeps all his property guarded and hidden away, as in a strong-box. For that reason he is called parcus, as if it were par arcus.

Then Favorinus, on hearing these words, said:

That fellow Gavius Bassus has made up and contrived an origin for that word in an unnatural, altogether laboured and repellent manner, rather than explained it. For if it is permissible to draw on one's imagination, why would it not seem more reasonable to believe that a man is called parcus for the reason that he forbids and prevents tile spending of money, as if he were pecuniarcus. Why not rather,

adopt an explanation which is simpler and nearer the truth? For parcus is derived neither from arca nor from arceo, but from parum and parvum.

A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus carried on in the Socratic manner with an over-boastful grammarian; and in that discourse we are told how Quintus Scaevola defined penus [*](A store of provisions.) ; and that this same definition has been criticized and rejected.

IN the entrance hall of the palace on the Palatine a large number of men of almost all ranks had gathered together, waiting an opportunity to pay their respects to Caesar. [*](Doubtless Antoninus Pius, since Gellius always refers to Divus Hadrianus.) And there in a group of scholars, in the presence of the philosopher Favorinus, a man who thought himself unusually rich in grammatical lore was airing trifles worthy of the schoolroom, discoursing on the genders and cases of nouns with raised eyebrows and an exaggerated gravity of voice and expression, as if he were the interpreter and sovereign lord of the Sibyl's oracle. Then, looking at Favorinus, although as yet he was hardly acquainted with him, he said: "Penus too is used in different genders and is variously declined. For the early writers used to say hoc penus and haec penus, and in the genitive peni and penoris; Lucilius in his sixteenth satire also used the word mundus, which describes women's ornaments, not in the masculine gender, as other writers do, but in the neuter, in these words: [*](519 Marx, who reads in the second line: quid mundum atque penus.)

1. A man once willed his wife all ornaments (mundum omne) and stores.
2. But what are ornaments? Who will determine that?

Well and good, master, whatever your name is, you have taught us more than enough about many things of which we were indeed ignorant and certainly did not ask to know. For what difference does it make to me and the one with whom I am speaking in what gender I use penus, or with what endings I inflect it, provided no one of us does this too barbarously? But this is clearly what I need to know, what penus is, and how far that word may be employed, so that I may not call a thing in everyday use by the wrong name, as those do who begin to speak their Latin in the slave-market.

Your question is not at all difficult,

Who indeed does not know that penus is wine, wheat, oil, lentils, beans, and the other things of that kind?

Is not penus also,

millet, panic-grass, [*](A kind of grass of the genus Panicun, a word derived, not from panis, bread, but from panus, an ear of millet, or similar grain (Walde).) acorns and barley? for these too are almost of the same sort;

I do not want you to trouble yourself further about the question whether those things which I have mentioned are called penus. But can you not, instead of telling me some essential part of penus, rather define the meaning of the word by stating its genus and adding its species?

Good Heavens!

I don't understand

v1.p.313

what you mean by genus and species.

You ask,

to have a matter which has been stated clearly stated still more clearly, which is very difficult; for it is surely a matter of common knowledge that every definition consists of genus and species. But if you ask me to predigest it for you, as they say, I will certainly do that too, for the sake of showing you honour.

And then Favorinus began in this wise:

If,

I should now ask you to tell me, and as it were to define in words, what a man is, you would not, I suppose, reply that you and I are men. For that is to show who is a man, not to tell what a man is. But if, I say, I should ask you to define exactly what a man is, you would undoubtedly tell me that a man is a mortal living being, endowed with reason and knowledge, or you would define him in some other manner which would differentiate him from all other animals. Similarly, then, I now ask you to tell what penus is, not to name some example of penus.

I have never learned philosophy, nor desired to learn it, and if I do not know whether barley is included under penus, or in what words penus is defined, I am not on that account ignorant also of other branches of learning.

To know what penus is,

is not more a part of my philosophy than of your grammar. For you remember, I suppose, that it is often inquired whether Virgil said penum struere longam or longo ordine; [*](Aen. i. 704 f.: Quinquaginta intus famulae, quibus ordine longo cura penum struere et flammis adolere Penates. The MSS. and Servius have longo; Charisius, longam.) for you surely know that both readings are current. But to make you feel easier in mind, let me say that not even those old masters of the law who

v1.p.315

were called 'wise men' are thought to have defined penus with sufficient accuracy. For I hear that Quintus Scaevola used the following words to explain penus: [*](Jur. Civ. fr. 1, Huschke; II. 5a, Bremer.) Penus,' said he, 'is what is to be eaten or drunk, which is prepared for the use of the father of the family himself; or the mother of the family, or the children of the father, or the household which he has about him or his children and which is not engaged in work [*](If the reading is correct, opus must mean field-work, the reference being to the household servants of the paterfamilies and his children.) . . . as [*](There is a lacuna in the text.) Mucius says ought to be regarded as penus. For articles which are prepared for eating and drinking day by day, for luncheon or dinner, are not penus; but rather the articles of that kind which are collected and stored up for use during a long period are called penus, because they are not ready at hand, but are kept in the innermost part of the house.' [*](Penitus, like Penates, is connected with penus in the sense of an inner chamber. Penus is derived by some from the root pa- of pasco, pabulum, etc.; by others it is connected with pe/nomai and po/nos, as the fruit of labour. Walde, Lat. Etym. Wörterb. s.v., separates penus, an inner chamber, from penus, a store of provisions, connecting the latter with pasco, the former with penes, penetro and Penates.) This information,

Thus Favorinus used to lead ordinary conversations of this kind from insignificant and trivial topics to those which were better worth hearing and knowing, topics not lugged in irrelevantly, nor by way of display, but springing from and suggested by the conversations themselves.

Besides what Favorinus said, I think this too ought to be added to our consideration of penus,